Study: Vitamin E Reduces Danger Of Heart Attack

March 26, 1996|By Delthia Ricks of The Sentinel Staff

For years researchers have suspected that vitamin E might protect against serious heart disease, but they lacked proof - until now.

A British study, reported Monday in Orlando, showed that daily megadoses of vitamin E - just a few cents worth a day - reduced the risk of heart attack in people with a history of cardiovascular disease.

Speaking Monday at the 45th Annual Scientific Session of the American College of Cardiology, British researchers said the vitamin reduced heart attacks by as much as 75 percent.

If further studies bear out the work of scientists who conducted the Cambridge Heart Antioxidant Study (CHAOS), a simple vitamin capsule may eventually play a complex role in reducing rates of heart disease.

The study's results surprised the researchers who conducted it, but is being applauded by nutritionists who say they knew of vitamin E's vital role all along.

''I am not surprised a bit,'' said Dr. John Hathcock, director of nutrition and regulatory science at the Council for Responsible Nutrition in Washington.

As the trade association for the dietary supplement industry, the council has for years been aware of statistical studies linking vitamin E to heart health, Hathcock said.

The CHAOS investigation brings the numbers alive by showing the vitamin's direct effect on the heart.

''The patients that might benefit most are not the people we took into the study,'' said Dr. Morris Brown of Cambridge University in England. ''From what we know about vitamin E, the probability is that if a healthier group of patients took it, they would be more likely to benefit than to come to harm.''

Still, the British scientists backed away from recommending megadoses of vitamin E for healthy people.

Their presentation came on the heels of their scientific paper, which was published Saturday in the British medical journal The Lancet.

''The 2,000 patients had heart disease in an advanced stage and all had hardening of the arteries,'' said Dr. Nigel G. Stephens of Papworth Hospital in Cambridge, and the study's lead investigator.

Stephens and his colleagues enrolled 2,002 people in the study, giving them daily capsules containing either 400 or 800 international units of vitamin E, or an inert capsule that had no medical benefit. By contrast, the U.S. recommended daily allowance is just 15 units for men and 12 for women.

After a year and a half of follow-up, 50 people in the study had died of heart disease and 55 had suffered nonfatal heart attacks. Fourteen of the nonfatal heart attacks were among the vitamin-takers, 41 in the placebo group.

The results suggested to researchers that vitamin E played a strong role in protecting patients' hearts.

Vitamin E is a fat-soluble nutrient that belongs to the family known as antioxidants.

Antioxidants have captured the spotlight in recent years because of their potential to protect healthy cells from destruction.

Stephens and his colleagues say the vitamin prevents the ''oxidation'' of fats in the blood, a transformation that causes fatty debris to be deposited along vessel walls.

That debris makes up disease-causing plaque, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes.

''If people have heart disease due to angina then they should take 800 units of vitamin E,'' Stephens said, ''but they should do that only under the advice of their doctors.''

The vitamin worked wonders for patients in the clinical trial, Stephens said, but he emphasized that ''a clinical trial is not real life.''